A Comparison of two methods for measuring shear wave birefringence from VSP data - Parametric inversion and layer stripping

Abstract

Shear wave birefringence has been the subject of considerable study in recent years. A principal application is the determination of fracture orientation from shear wave splitting in multicomponent VSPs. This is accomplished by studying the polarization direction of the lesding shear wave -and the travel time delay between the two split shear waves, which may give a direct indication of the orientation of the anisotropy. Here, we examine two methods for detection and description of fractured zones from shear wave splitting: layer stripping and parametric inversion.